ALGERIA –
Country on the coast of North Africa, now a French colony, but formerly belonging successively to Carthage, Rome, the Saracens, and the Ottoman Turks. The claim is put forth by several Jewish Algerian communities that they were...

ALGIERS –
A seaport of northern Africa; capital of the French colonial province of Algeria. The origin of its Jewish community, like that of all Algerian communities, is shrouded in obscurity. Doubtlessa Jewish population existed at...

ALGUADEZ –
A Castilian court physician and chief rabbi of the fifteenth century; exact dates of birth and death unknown. He was presumably related to Don David Alguadez, a brother-in-law of the treasurer of Portugal, Don Juda, and to...

ALGUM –
A tree, the identity of which is uncertain. Jastrow, "Dict." s.v., suggests that it may be coral-wood; others, that it may be brazil-wood (so Kimḥi) or red sandal-wood. The name "Almug" (I Kings, x. 11) is said by some...

ALḤADIB –
Name of a family of which representatives are known from the beginning of the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. The following list includes the more important members:Abraham ben Solomon Alḥadib: Judge in Corfu...

'AL HA-RISHONIM –
A passage in the Morning Prayer coming between the Shema' and the 'Amidah. In the Northern rituals a variant is substituted on the festivals and special Sabbaths when the piyut termed "Zulat," from the concluding word of the...

AL-ḤARIZI, JUDAH B. SOLOMON B. HOPHNI –
A celebrated Hebrew poet of the early part of the thirteenth century, who lived in Spain and traveled in the Orient. Neither the date of his birth nor that of his death is known. Possessing a masterly knowledge of Hebrew and...

'AL ḤEṬ –
The longer confession of sin (Widdui), each sentence of which begins with the formula, "Forgive us for the sin we have committed before Thee in . . ." the particular sins then being enumerated in alphabetical order. In the...

ALI B. ABRAHAM AL-TAWIL –
Karaite scholar; flourished at Ramleh, Egypt, in the twelfth century. He was the author of a commentary on the Bible, no longer extant. Indeed, his very name remained unknown until recently, when it was brought to the attention...

ALI HA-LEVI BEN SOLOMON –
Gaon; head of the academy at Bagdad in the first half of the twelfth century. His name occurs in an old Arabic responsum (Harkavy, "Responsen der Geonim," p.186), also in "The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela" (ed. Asher, pp. 77...

ALI IBN SAHL IBN RABBAN ALTABARI (ABU AL-ḤASAN) –
Physician and writer on medical subjects in Irak about the middle of the ninth century; born in Taberistan. His father, Sahl, was well known as an astronomer and mathematician. For a time Ali lived at Rai, where Mohammed al-Razi...

ALIBI –
A form of defense by which the accused undertakes to show that he was elsewhere when the crime was committed. Such a defense could of course be made in the criminal procedure of the ancient Jews: for witnesses were admitted for...

ALIENATION AND ACQUISITION –
The act of causing a thing to become the property of another—Alienation—is, in Roman and English law, the general term under which the change of title by gift, sale, or barter is treated. The rabbinical law looks at the transfer...

ALIENS –
There are several designations for Aliens in the Old Testament. Of these, and mean specifically "foreign," a person outside the circle of the nation (Isa. i. 7; Judges, xix. 12) or of the class or family (Deut. xxv. 5, husband's...

ALIMONY –
The allowance made to a woman by an order of court, from her husband's estate or income, for her maintenance after her divorce or legal separation from him, or during a suit therefor" ("Standard Dictionary"). This is its...

ALITYROS (ALITURUS) –
Actor, of Jewish birth, at the court of Nero. Through him Josephus became acquainted with the empress Poppæa—whose special favorite the actor always had been—and obtained the pardon for those priests whom Felix, the procurator...

'ALIYAH –
In synagogal services, the going up, or being called up, to the reading-desk (almemar), for the reading of a portion of the Law. According to an ancient institution of the synagogue seven men are called up in succession to read...

ALJAMA –
Separate Jurisdiction. A Spanish term of Arabian origin used in old official documents to designate the self-governing communities of Moors and Jews living under Spanish rule. The Jewish communities of Spain, owing to their...

ALḳABIẒ, SOLOMON BEN MOSES HA-LEVI –
A cabalist and liturgical poet born in Safed, who flourished in the first half of the sixteenth century and who was a contemporary of Joseph Caro, the author of the "Shulḥan 'Aruk," and teacher and brother-in-law of Moses...

ALKABIZI, ABRAHAM –
Editor at Constantinople during the first quarter of the sixteenth century. In 1516 he, together with Judah Sason and Joseph Hamon, published the "Toledot Adam waḤawwah" of Jeroham b. Meshullam.Bibliography: Steinschneider, Cat....

ALKALAI, ABRAHAM BEN SAMUEL –
Casuist, who lived in Turkey in the latter part of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth. He wrote "Zekor le-Abraham" (Remember Abraham), in which the laws of the four Ṭurim are alphabetically arranged and...